Cloud Storage and Disaster Recovery

It may look like everyone is adopting cloud technology. However, IDG Research shows that over half of IT leaders (56%) say they are still identifying IT operations that are candidates for a move to the cloud. PC Connection, Inc. is seeing more movement to cloud storage and disaster recovery (DR), because they provide immediate benefits and relief to both the IT environment and staff. Check out some of these statistics.

• Most enterprises expect 50x data growth by 2020 – rapidly growing data volumes like this are a challenges to effectively architect and replicate for availability.

• Worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow at a 19.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) – almost six times the rate of overall IT spending growth—from nearly $70 billion in 2015 to more than $141 billion in 2019, and small and medium businesses (SMBs) will account for more than 40% of the worldwide total throughout the forecast period. Why, you ask? Because IT staffs in SMB companies are constrained, and cloud hosted IT services have the effect of adding staff by reducing operational overhead.

• Organizations embracing the cloud can increase revenues between 4–10% plus annually and reduce IT costs by up to 77%.Whether it’s improved capabilities, improved performance, or delivery of customer-facing applications that deliver greater performance and value, the business benefits are numerous and real.

• The majority of companies (75%) are not ready to face a disaster.

• Close to half  (43%) of companies that face an unplanned data center outage never reopen, and 51% close within two years—i.e., just 6% of these companies remain in business two years after an outage. With performance and resiliency outages as a major inhibitor to commerce, an environment that is more sustainable in the event of adversity brings real business value.

While the consequences of not choosing cloud storage do not impact customer as much as not choosing cloud-based DR, they are very costly: 20% of cloud storage users recover from a site disaster in 4 hours or less; only 9% of non-cloud storage users say the same. In addition, the cost of cloud storage is declining at a rapid pace, what many call the ‘race to zero’, or as close to free storage as possible.

In what is seen as a three-horse race, with Amazon the clear leader, followed by Microsoft and Google—price reductions are taking place on a constant basis. Amazon has cut its prices more than 50 times since it launched AWS back in 2006, and there seems no end in sight as competitors try and keep pace. But customers need to understand that these commodity Cloud platforms put the onus on the client to build and deliver a majority of the solution themselves. Where as, other Cloud solutions for storage and DR provide greater functionality and capability for those without the skills or desire to manage the environment.

So what does this mean for you? The benefits of using the cloud for storage and DR are well proven, and the costs of not doing so are equally compelling. By connecting your on-premises data center to the storage pools or replication services of a public cloud provider, you get a tiered and resilient data protection strategy. Working together with a technology partner like PC Connection, Inc. you can design a solution to accomplish your objective—whether your goal is redundancy, primary off-site storage, or a storage pool for the delivery of a new application— with one of its public cloud service providers.